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I still struggle to understand what India really is.

At first glance, this seems like a simple question.

But the deeper I think about it — through history, politics, and identity — the more complex it becomes.

If we look from the British colonial era, then figures like Tata, Birla, Jain, and other elites could be seen as anti-national, as they cooperated with British and benefited from a system that drained India’s wealth.

Yet, after independence, these same groups played a huge role in building modern India.

So, were they exploiters or nation-builders ?

And even then, we must ask — whose wealth was being looted?

Because the lower castes who make up nearly 80% of the population, never owned much of that wealth in the first place.

If we go further back, people call Islamic invaders “anti-national.” But that’s complicated too — because the concept of a nation didn’t even exist at that time.

Can we call someone “anti-national” in a world where the concept of “nation” itself was not yet born?

If we go even further back, to the time of the Manusmriti, we could argue that the upper-caste Hindus were “anti-national” in a moral sense — because they enslaved lower castes, not by coming from some foreign land, but by oppressing their own people, often from nearby villages.

The caste system itself fractured society long before any external invasion.

If we go back to the Iron Age, 1200BC the whole idea of “nation” falls apart entirely.

Without settled agriculture, there was no concept of property, marriage, or ownership over women — and therefore, no idea of a national identity or “anti-national” behavior.

And if we go far enough back, we reach an age when Homo sapiens walked alongside Neanderthals and Denisovans — until the struggle for existence itself erased them from the earth, long before nations or morality existed.

How do we decide where India should derive its memory from?

Because if we define “India” using ideas from before 1947, we risk building our identity on centuries of oppression and division — and that could put India itself in serious trouble.
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Yash Pratap Author

Web Dev, System Design, AI
(edited)
In the coming 15–20 years, as demographic shifts occur, even respected figures like Ratan Tata may be unfairly branded as anti-national — much like how some people have begun to mislabel Gandhiji today due to demographic shift and politics.

This decade represents a crucial window for reform, driven by demographic momentum.

No political party is likely to oppose major reforms, at least in urban India.

However, if we fail to address the issue of Indian identity now, we risk facing serious challenges again — next time fueled by a communism oriented ideology instead of current Brahminical Patriarchy oriented ideology, similar to Nepal, where Ratan Tata or JRD Tata could be labeled anti-national, just as Gandhiji.

To know more about Nepal issue

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yashp2411_nepal-nepalprotest2025-activity-7371409028054388736-PECU
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भारत का चित्त अति बूढ़ा है। भारत में बच्चा पैदा होते ही बूढ़ा हो जाता है और जीवन को खतरा मानने लगता है। वह आत्मा की अमरता की बड़ी-बड़ी बातें करता है, लेकिन जैसे ही जीवन में खतरे उठाने की बात आती है, वह कायर की तरह चुप हो जाता है, क्योंकि वह बचपन में ही बूढ़ा हो चुका है। यहाँ मैं “बूढ़ा” उस व्यक्ति को कहता हूँ जो भविष्य को लेकर पूरी तरह निराश हो चुका है और अपनी जीवन ऊर्जा अपने अतीत से लेता है। अक्सर भिखमंगे यह सोचकर खुशी मना लेते हैं कि उनके पूर्वज सम्राट थे, इसलिए वे अपनी ऊँची जाति और धर्म का गर्व करके चैन से सो पाते हैं। हम विश्वगुरु इसलिए बनना चाहते हैं क्योंकि हम विश्व के शिष्य बन गए हैं और हमने खुद से निर्माण करने की शक्ति खो दी है। रूढ़िवाद में फँसे हुए व्यक्ति कभी भी मिलकर नया समाज नहीं बना सकते। खुद को नया बनाए बिना, जो भी समाज बनाएँगे, वह पुराना ही बनेगा। अंधे होकर जो भी चीज़ हम कॉपी करेंगे, वह कभी हमारे काम नहीं आएगी। भारत का इंजीनियर एक बड़ा मैकेनिक है, जबकि विदेश का इंजीनियर एक छोटा वैज्ञानिक है।
जंगल तभी हरा-भरा होता है जब उसके अलग-अलग पेड़-पौधे और पशु-पक्षी सभी के स्वस्थ बने रहने के लिए अलग-अलग तरह से सुविधाएँ मिलती हैं। सभी की वृद्धि एक ही तरीके से नहीं होती क्योंकि उनकी ज़रूरतें अलग-अलग होती हैं।

From Osho’s 1968 Lecture Series (10 hours audio) : The Future of India
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Pawan Sakkarwal • 1st

Digital Transformation | Business Excellence | BPM | Process Reengineering
(edited)
Yash Pratap Since you quoted Osho, he has also said that countries and borders have no business being on earth. He probably saw a world that may come in existence 500 yrs later if humans get "wise". By that logic this whole pursuit of a national identity is redundant and outdated. Hitler has done a PhD on " identity" and "nationalism" whose results everyone saw a century back. We can't climb the same tree and expect to reach a different fruit.
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Pawan Sakkarwal National identity doesn't need to be as rigid as Hitler’s. National identity is needed because we can only vote in the context of a nation. As long as we have the concept of a country, we need national identity, and I argued that before Independence in 1947, we never had equality even in principle, I mean democracy & Constitution, so our identity needs to be based on the post-1947 era.

However, a few things we always miss are the logistics when we compare nationalism with Hitler’s time because mainstream history is written from a male context only which is highly misleading. This entire civilisation is built on oppression and unpaid labour of majority of women across different classes, caste, religion, race, country etc.

High TFR and poverty : You need extra young men to create chaos based on physical violence and no country ever overcome poverty without TFR, when TFR goes lower than 2 then it's almost impossible to create long term chaos based on physical violence.

This will not go back in any case there are 0 countries where TFR go in opposite direction.

So, we don't have to worry about long term or decade long violence.
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Pawan Sakkarwal so does the country, How can we create a country without nationalism. Nationalism when it is defined on orthodox religious or communistic ideology then only it is "aggressive". If we manage these two then it will be really difficult to create better. I don't think we can really create ideal society without improving GDP per capita and TFR and the TFR part we are doing great and if manage the GDP per capita part then it will be very difficult to create violence.
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Pawan Sakkarwal • 1st

Digital Transformation | Business Excellence | BPM | Process Reengineering
Yash Pratap the idea of nationalism as compared to a welfare state is defined as aggressive. Soft and nationalism are oxymoron. If you are nationalist you are bound to cheer in times of war or lets say cricket match. Thats when your nationalism - soft or hard or rigid is at its peak. However the same nationalist can turn a blind eye to many evils happening inside the nation and not do anything about it or rather add to the misery. I have only grown disenchanted with nationalism with time. Its fundamental duty is to look for "anti nationals"
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(edited)
Pawan Sakkarwal I have a few important links for your doubts regarding how politics works — it's mathematics.

Politics determine what kind of nationalism will happen it's primarily based on how population migrate, that's how US academia approach politics and they're always right on decade basis

Indian politics follows Nepal because they are demographically similar.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yashp2411_nepal-nepalprotest2025-activity-7371409028054388736-PECU

How Gandhi and Tolstoy are still protecting India and have never let it turn into a long-term dictatorship.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yashp2411_gandhi-tolstoy-greatmantheory-activity-7371761936910249984-L1zY

How the US destroyed the Middle East despite academia already being aware of everything.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yashp2411_failed-indian-foreign-policy-geopolitics-activity-7358411441789440000-Wbux
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Pawan Sakkarwal I am just telling the logistics of cruelty and how we can avoid cruelty on the basis of caste class religion and gender which are birth based and which can't be changed. If we can avoid this then we can avoid cruelty for a big chunk of population, one of the solution is "intersectional feminism" if we define Indian identity on the philosophy of that basis, we can definitely define better national identity.
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Rajesh Da Costa • 1st

Sous Chef @ Current Company | Diploma in Nautical Science
Don't worry, this is keep on going on... India is not just a country, it's an emotion... And maybe the most patriotic we can do is to keep on asking the questions... ''JAI HIND''...
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Balraj Kapini • 1st

Communication that moves you into action | Copywriter | Communication Strategist | Cartoonist | Visual Scriber | Teacher
How about we zoom out and take a long shot view, a Birds Eye view?

If we look at the trajectory of our progression, we have evolved from a society of a Dunbar number to one of 1.44 billion people. And are very quickly marching towards a planetary global village.

Nationalism is a temporary concept, before we start to talk and act like global citizens. I’m not saying we have to relinquish our innate Indianness, or our local communities and identities. Rather all of them can co-exist together. I’m a proud Indian but it would be foolish of me to build a prideful wall around myself and prevent foreign influence or exchange of ideas.
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(edited)
Balraj Kapini Yes, thanks for your views but for me Indian identity is more important because I can only vote for Indian elections so logistics are very important because if we don't put logistics primary then it will be troublesome to bring changes. Ignoring Political concepts such as democracy and why it exists is one of the biggest reason why we're suffering from authoritarianism since independence.
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Jack Sim • 2nd

Mr Toilet. Founder at World Toilet Organization. BOP HUB. Storyteller for Social Change. Author of book: The Gumption of Mr Toilet.
I am surprised to read your article of the difficulty in identifying the Indian identity. I thought it was a collection of Kingdoms unified by the British and now they identify themselves as Indians.
I met Chinese-looking people from Nagaland who identified themselves as Indians. I also travelled to many states in India and they all identified themselves as Indians to a foreigner like me.
But at the local level, there is a North-South Divide. Even the Bangalorean felt very different from a Tamil.
So what was it that held the Indians together?

From foreign eyes, I see the Taj Mahal, Gandhi, Temples, Indian food, Bollywood, Sarees, Yogis, Modi, Kumbh Mela, Holi, Diwali, etc

Indians did not know that Thaipusam is celebrated bigger in Singapore and Malaysia than inside India.

Tell me what holds India together despite the diversity
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(edited)
Jack Sim there are people in India who don't want to consider Indian as collection of Kingdom, they say India is ancient Hindu rashtra based on Hindutva ideology and they're changing history and syllabus and what not there are similar elements in muslims also and sikhs with similar majoritarian authoritarian mindset Gazwa e hind and Khalistan. They don't want secular and democratic India.
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Roger Yap EdD MSc • 3rd+

Market Strategizer & Technopreneur
Gautama Buddha Sakyamuni tried to change the mindset of the Hindu social and religious beliefs. His initial success seen only in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
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Roger Yap EdD MSc yes but the problem is whatever we define, it will always based on exclusion especially gender because females were never consider equal and there were no such thing as equality before 1947. All religion were anti female in practice.
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Geert van Kuijk • 3rd+

Helping organisations optimise their creative capacity to better deal with a non-linear world
In my view Indians do have a strong sense of shared identity, despite the fact that it is multifaceted, with national, regional, linguistic, and religious pride and identification. I think that the end of British colonial power played a role in shaping India's self identity India's growing success and assertiveness in today’s world stage are not only strengthening its diverae group of people and cultures shared Indian identity but also shared national pride